Temporary exhibition: Irena Huml. Forms of Presence

The mission of the MoJA Museum is to bear witness to the fact that the art of goldsmithing is a fully-fledged field of creative endeavor, and jewelry is a carrier of memory, identity, and emotion.

We would not be able to speak of this today if it were not for her - Prof. Irena Huml (1928–2015). An eminent art historian and critic, she was the first in Poland to lift jewelry out of the shadow of mere craftsmanship and grant it academic and artistic status. At the same time, she never depreciated functional objects; on the contrary, she treated them with the same seriousness with which she wrote about them. She wore and collected them, proving through her own choices that the art of goldsmithing lives in close proximity to the body.

The selection of works presented in the exhibition "Irena Huml: Forms of Presence" is a fragment of a collection numbering nearly 400 objects, currently held by Maria Magdalena Kwiatkiewicz. The entire collection can be experienced at the MoJA Jewelry Museum, showcasing how the passion of one woman-collector found continuity in the understanding and openness of another.

Can an object retain the warmth of a hand for decades?

The primary goal of the exhibition is not merely to pay tribute to an outstanding researcher, but to create a space for experience. At the center of the narrative is Professor Huml’s symbolic desk - a place where everyday life intertwined with reflections on art, meetings with creators, and a personal relationship with the object. Her wedding rings, her "lucky" brooch - these are the traces of her presence.

The exhibition features pieces selected from Irena Huml’s personal collection, which she built with great care. In the early stages, she focused primarily on the works of Jerzy and Jadwiga Zaremski. Later, she began to appreciate cooperative products created by ORNO, Rytosztuka, Imago Artis, and Warmet. Her greatest weakness was filigree, and her main goal was to gather jewelry characteristic of those times - pieces close to the women who wore them. It is thanks to Prof. Irena Huml’s attention that mass-produced objects were appreciated and elevated to the rank of a unique testimony of their era.

An Ongoing Dialogue

The presentation of Prof. Irena Huml’s collection at the MoJA Jewelry Museum has a symbolic dimension. Two perspectives meet here - the scholarly and the collector’s - both of which served the same cause in different ways: the recognition of Polish goldsmithing art as a vital part of contemporary culture. The collection, preserved in its entirety under the care of Maria Magdalena Kwiatkiewicz, remains available as living material for further reflection.